Pierrick Bourgault is a bistro devotee and a steadfast reporter and photographer of such places. Author of dozens of books on bistros and bistro life, he has, in his latest little book (in French), written a love letter of sorts to a bistro and a bistro-keeper dear to his heart: Le Café du Coin in Le Mans, operated for 37 years by gruff, tender, pipe-smoking Jeannine Brunet, known affectionately as La Mère Lapipe. La Mère Lapipe spoke of herself in interviews as the fourth historical monument of Le Mans, after the cathedral, the 24-Hour race, and the shredded meat spread called rillettes. And well before she died, in 2022, at the age of 80, she was celebrated as such.

Pierrick Bourgault’s works about bistro life may be slight or filled out, personal or researched, scattered or focused, but in all he pays homage to the bistro as a gathering place and sanctuary for those who might otherwise never meet, a place that’s as indistinguishable from its overseer as the Vatican is from the Pope.

In this new book, a mini coffee-table book, the writing is sparse. In 50 snippets, each illustrated by a rudimentary cartoon drawn by Gab, Pierrick Bourgault sketches moments of drunkenness, silliness, humor, anger, quirkiness, joy, tragedy, temperament, wit, hope, despair, tenderness, raucousness, and vulgarity, and of loneliness momentarily set aside. This Café du Coin was a real place that could be any place that allows for the creation of a community of eclectic and diverse individuals. La Mère Lapipe was a real person who could be any bistro owner dedicated to maintaining such a place of character and conviviality over many years.

Pierrick Bourgault grew up on Mayenne, in western France, and studied natural sciences at the University of Le Mans. Though he made his home in Paris, he returned to Le Mans frequent enough to be a welcome regular at Le Café du Coin, both as observer and participant, with an admiration for Jeannine’s own devotion to bistro life. This book isn’t detailed, in-depth, analytical writing about bistros, but rather an affectionate broad-stroke portrait that reveals how one place and one person can bring together a diverse group of individuals simply by being as tolerant of them as they are of her. La Mère Lapipe’s Café du Coin comes across not so much as a business establishment as it does a home away from home, as the best bistros do.

La Mère Lapipe au Café du Coin by Pierrick Bourgault, published in April 2025 by Editions Ouest-France.

See this video portrait of Jeannine Brunet aka La Mère Lapipe filmed after its reopening in 2021 after Covid lockdown.

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A food lover, I worked my way through the Breton catalog of culinary wonders during my first few months in Brittany. I ate delicately spun buckwheat crepe-like galettes, my favorite filled with a perfect balance of musky smoky sausage and briny seaweed. I feasted on piles of mussels coaxed to open their shells in a savory brew of mellowed alliums, wine and then the sea broth given up by the crustacean, a baguette there to soak up every single drop of buttery, tangy broth. At my friend’s cottage by the roaring gray ocean, I slathered slices of dark buckwheat bread with the famous brilliant-yellow Breton butter salted by the sea and ate it alongside razor clams we had just dug up from the sandy beach. And my cheeks got round with weekend brunches ending in flaky, caramelly kouign amann pastry.

Those first few months I don’t know if I ate even one potato. “Earth apple” in French and Breton: pomme de terre, aval-douar. I wondered where the produce from all the fields of green went if not to the Breton table. In fact, my introduction to those potatoes – Amandine, Charlotte, Marianna, to name just a very few – began not à table but on the streets of Brest. Literally on the streets.

I was on my way home from school one evening, later than most commuters. It was a typical drizzly gray spring but the eerie silence was more like a city after a winter storm. Farmers protesting low prices had dumped tractor loads of potatoes at major intersections. The piles were now a whispering soft mush like when you add too much milk to the spuds.

Cars quietly shushed through the slush or got stuck, like me, in a foot of puree. A tall lusty gendarme, in the normally menacing all-black uniform, directed traffic with the glee of a child on the first real snow day in December. He lifted up my car’s back right rear where the tire was spinning in the muck with a hearty, “Hop là!” The thrust sent a spray of potato up the front of his jacket and his feet slid out from under him on the slippery sliding mess. He fell flat on his derriere, laughing up at the sky; I half expected him to make a snow angel in his delight. “Oh, la, la, quel bordel!” he laughed.

My introduction to the importance of potatoes to Breton chefs happened at a small café on a blustery winter day, the wind roaring in off the Atlantic. The waitress standing at my table, a round older woman with remarkable posture, tapped a pad with her pencil. Her apron was pristine, white and pressed, a towel tucked on the side to give a table a quick swipe. She was all business and waiting for my order. The special of the day? Lapin chasseur – rabbit, hunter-style. With potatoes.

It sounded lovely. But in my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed naïve American way, I asked in my clumsy French, “What is there as vegetables?”

The waitress, a bit like my stern second-grade teacher, Mrs. Bodfish, who said a lot with a little, stared silently. She must have realized Americans can be dense. “Potatoes,” she repeated.

Not to be deterred I went on, “Well, in my country, potatoes are not truly considered as a vegetable.”

She continued to stare. I matched her ability to be frugal with her words, with my ability to go the extra mile. “It’s like the rice or the pasta? How do you say, a ‘starch’?”

Nothing. Surrendering, I ordered the lapin that the hunter had slaved over with the potato vegetables. The rabbit was tender and fell away from the bone with a simple touch of a single fork tine. Mushrooms melted away on my tongue in a caramelly brown sauce and a medley of herbs teased my palate. And with each bite? A bit of potato to perfectly bind and carry the woodsy meat, mushroom and sauce without disturbing the delicacy of the flavors.

The waitress came by and asked brusquely how everything was. “Très, très bon – délicieux.” She gave a short and sure “of course” nod and went back to the other customers. My stomach gloriously warm and full, the bill paid, I was calling my farewell when the waitress remembered something and gestured for me to wait.

She called to the chef in the kitchen. He appeared at the window where orders were placed – tall and thin, eyes quick and gray-blue like the Breton sea, cheeks red and glossy with the heat of the kitchen. She presented me ceremoniously with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “This,” she emphasized, “is the woman who said potatoes are not a vegetable.”

He looked me over from head to toe and back again. He enunciated. “C’est le légume de baaaaase, madame,” which translates to “Lady, it is the foundation on which all other vegetables rest, on which all food rests, in fact.”

There it was. The reason for the glorious green and rolling fields laying down a carpet from the city to the sea as I passed on the drive to work each day. And from that moment on, I began to see them everywhere. Humble, unassuming potatoes – the necessary support to the dishes that stole the culinary thunder but were not complete without them.

There was Kig ha farz – buckwheat flour dumplings cooked in a linen sleeve alongside boiled meats and vegetables – with potato cooked in the salty, savory broth. Not a restaurant dish but a simple stick-to-your-ribs meal meant to gather family around the table after Sunday mass. Poulet à la Bretonne, simmered on the stove in a Breton cider as fine as any dry white wine, only became a full dinner when served with golden roasted potatoes. Historically, the fisherman of Brittany took potatoes with them for long days out on the water and would add a medley of fish from their catch with a bit of water and sea brine to make the working man’s cotriade, a nourishing soup at sea. And every Breton village had its own recipe for the fisherman’s soup perfectly suited to the many many rainy, windy days of Bretagne.

In 2023, I will be heading back to revisit the land of pommes de terre. I know I can expect some rain, I can expect drives through lovely countryside, and I can expect some incredible meals with the essential foundation of potatoes.

© 2022, Francesca Cannan, for first publication on France Revisited.

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Oh, the people you’ll meet and the food and drink you’ll taste when you leave the main roads in Normandy! Is your destination Deauville, Honfleur and the Flowered Coast or is it Caen, Bayeux and the D-Day Landing Beaches? Either way, let’s veer off at Pont l’Evêque for several tastes of Pays d’Auge, Auge Country: cheese, beer and apple brandy. First in this three-part series, the cheese. Whether you’re a traveler in Normandy or looking for enjoyable tastes elsewhere…

Pont l’Evêque is an unremarkable town that’s lent its name to a memorable cheese. It’s one of the fab four appellation cheeses of Normandy, the others being Camembert de Normandie, Livarot and Neufchâtel. A square, soft, unpressed cheese with a washed rind and a wavy top, Pont l’Evêque can be stinky to the nose but the taste is affable. It varies, depending on the cheese’s age, from creamy mild to a soft mix of grass, leather and hay, without ever entering the stables. It comes in pasteurized and raw-milk versions. But we don’t come to Norman cow country for pasteurized cheeses.

I took a country road in search of the best and most uncommon of the raw-milk versions: Pont l’Evêque fermier. Fermier (farm-made) on the label indicates here that the cheese is made with raw cow milk whose transformation begins soon after milking, while the milk—from cows fed from the pastures and grains of the farm itself—is still warm. All, including its initial aging, is carried out on the same farm.

Meet Jérôme Spruytte, one of only a handful of devotees to producing Pont l’Evêque fermier.

Jérôme is a time-honored cheese crafter who comes from a farming tradition rather than a hipster notion of returning to the soil. His grandfather, also named Jérôme, began making cheese here in the agricultural village of Saint-Philbert-des-Champs in 1933. The current Jérôme maintains an age-old approach starting with cows with a healthy, diverse diet, fed from the farm’s own 370 acres (150 hectares) of varied pastures. Rather, he and Françoise, his wife, do since Françoise also has a hand in this, as well as being well occupied in her role as the mayor of this village of 650.

The couple lives in a house near the village church. Their farm buildings are also across the street from the church. So no need to ask for directions—find the church and you’ll find Jérôme and Françoise Spruytte’s Ferme du Bourg.

Regulations for the Pont l’Evêque appellation call for at least 50% of the milk coming from Norman cows, but the Spruyttes’ cheese is based on a herd of Norman cows only. With a herd of 100, the Spruyttes transform about 20-25% of the farm’s milk production into raw-milk Pont l’Evêque. The rest is sent to other producers in the region to be transformed into Camembert de Normandie. (Note the “de Normandie,” which designates raw-milk camembert produced in Normandy, unlike other camemberts, typically pasteurized, whether made in Normandy or not).

Using 3.6 liters (nearly a US gallon) of milk to produce one medium-size square of Pont l’Evêque, the Spruyttes make 110 cheeses per session, normally two sessions per day, 365 days per year. Call it passion, call it a way of life, call it “this is what we do.” Their Pont l’Evêque is prepared and aged in a small installation on the ground floor and basement of the building where Jérôme’s parent once lived, the oldest part of which dates from the 16th century.

After firming up in its square mold for several day, frequently being turned and positioned in phase with the room’s humidity, the shaped cheese is wrapped and moved to the basement. Aligned, the squares look like journal notebooks on a shelf, ready to record the initial passage of time. They are then taken to a second basement space for further aging. It all looks quite simple (and labor intensive). And that’s the beauty of farm-made cheese that eventually develops a personality that’s rustic to the nose and mellow to the taste.

Pont l’Evêque fermier is aged here at least 18 days (a minimum of 21 days for the larger size) before being available for sale. Most is sold after 25-28 of aging. After 30 days, Jérôme says, locals, accustomed to the availability of younger versions in the countryside, no longer want it, but Parisians do as they often prefer more aged Pont l’Evêque. As for aged versions, Jérôme says that 30-45 days is ideal for his fermier. Test the difference yourself by buying halves of two or three different ages.

Raw-milk artisanal and farm cheeses will change in taste through the year depending on what the cows have been grazing on in a particular season. The variety of pastureland at the farm makes for a rich diet from spring through fall when the cows are out grazing. Though absolute consistency isn’t the aim (like a proud parent, Jérôme welcomes the individuality of each batch, each square), the tastefulness of farm-made cheese is maintained in winter by the cows continuing to enjoy a varied winter diet of grain directly grown on the farm. He nevertheless recognizes the strain that European Union regulations put on producers such as himself as he tries to maintain “the expression of the cheese” from being standardized.

Spend 30 minutes with Jérôme and you’ll understand the earthy heart of cheesemaking as it involves land, cows, cellars and constant work. Spend 30 minutes with Françoise and you’ll want to vote for her to be your mayor, too. While the installations in the house are off-limits to visitors for health reasons, visitors are welcome for a chat and a purchase at the little shack of a shop at the farm. Don’t expect to communicate with Jérôme or Françoise in English but through curiosity. As Françoise says, “When people are interested, we always manage to communicate.”

Pick up your cheese at the farm, buy some bread in the town of Le Breuil-en-Auge (or Pont l’Evêque earlier in your day), then find yourself a spot for a picnic, for example by the beach of the Lac Terre d’Auge, outside the town of Pont L’Evêque, or simply here, by the road, by the church.

Now what to drink with this picnic? Other than for the designated driver, consider accompanying your Pont l’Evêque with Norman cidre (hard cider) or with beer produced by a local brewer whom you’ll soon also meet on these pages.

Jérôme and Françoise Spruytte, Ferme du Bourg, 14130 Saint-Philbert-des-Champs. Tel: 02 31 64 71 99. A 15-minute drive from Pont l’Evêque. Farm shop closed on Sunday afternoons. Present at the Pont l’Evêque food market on Monday mornings.

Pont l’Evêque and surroundings have labeled their territory Terre d’Auge for tourism purposes. See the official tourist information site is terredauge-tourisme.fr. As a traveler, however, there’s no need to know the limits of this specific territory. The beautiful village of Beuvron-en-Auge is a short drive to the west. A short drive to the south is the Basilica of Lisieux, a Catholic pilgrimage destination. Official tourist information about the broader area of Calvados, one of the five departments or sub-regions that comprise Normandy, can be found here.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

Also read this article about the fab four of Norman cheeses and this article about cidre (hard cider) and calvados (apple brandy) on Fance Revisited.

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… there’s a public transportation strike going on and your good friend Achmed is staying with you for several days because he can’t get to work from his home in the suburbs. From Monday through Thursday you have dinner together. He then goes to sleep by 9:30 since he needs to get up by 5 to make his way to work. An easy houseguest. You both figure he’ll be with you for just those few days, but the strike continues. He goes home for the weekend then returns Monday evening for a second week.

This time he arrives bearing gifts. There’s a box of camembert, since he knows that you like cheese, and a Tupperware of cornes de gazelle, gazelle horns. He knows that you like them, too.

After dinner, while Achmed enjoys his customary yogurt (“No,” he said when you offered to buy some, “I’ll bring my own, I know what I like”), you serve yourself one of the gazelle horns. It has almond chips on the outside and a sweet almond-orange-blossom filling. Delicious. It’s the best gazelle horn that you’ve ever had and you tell him so. “Normal,” he says, “c’est de chez moi.” His sister in Algiers made them. They were delivered over the weekend by a visiting cousin. They’re all for you, he says; he has another dozen at home. Just save him the Tupperware.

Achmed knows that you like gazelle horns because last week when you went together to an Algerian restaurant for take-out portions of a stew called chorba you bought a powdered-sugar-coated gazelle horn for dessert even though he told you not to. You’d thought that he was saying that because he believes you eat too many sweets, but he was actually trying to warning you off without saying so in front of the owner. It turned out to be hard, stale and too sugary. “I told you,” he said. “I knew they were industrial, not homemade, and could have been sitting there for weeks.”

He then tells you the following story: Many years ago, soon after he arrived in France, he bought a gazelle horn at a Tunisian bakery. The owner had told him that it was freshly made. Achmed took it home to have after dinner. When he tried to break it in half he couldn’t. He took a knife to it and even then had to insist until it finally splintered apart. And it tasted like plaster. The following day he returned the shards to the bakery and told the Tunisian owner that his so-called fresh gazelle horn was stale. The guy offered to exchange it for a new one. Achmed said, “If you can easily cut into one of those on your shelf, I’ll buy them all.” The guy picked one up and tried to break it in two but it was hard as rock. He asked if Achmed wanted a refund. Achmed said, “No, but I’m never coming back to your bakery. My name isn’t Jean-Paul or Pierre-Jacques. Maybe they’ll keep coming back for more, but not me. I’m from Algiers. You can’t get away with that with someone from Algeria.”

You ask how he knew that the chorba we’d had last week was homemade. “Because I’ve seen the kitchen, I’ve spoken with the chef, and I’ve also seen the truck that delivers the pastries.”

You allow yourself then to broach the subject of the camembert. “Excuse me for mentioning this,” you say, “but the camembert you brought—and I thank you for it—won’t be good for the same reason: it’s hard, pasteurized and industrial. It’s camembert in name only. I don’t mean to offend you, I just want to let you know that if you’re going to buy a camembert it should be Camembert de Normandie, made from raw milk.”

“I’m not offended,” says Achmed. “I just didn’t think you were so French.”

© 2019, 2021, Gary Lee Kraut

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Somewhere along the way of my haphazard, improvisational French culinary education I got interested in olive oil—the diversity of olive oils—the different levels of greenness and maturity, olive varietals, oils produced after slight, controlled fermentation of the olives, and aromatic olive oils. It’s done wonders for my cooking; with few ingredients, I can enhance a salad, vegetable dish, fish or beef with a drizzle of this or a sprinkling of that.

I’m still an olive oil amateur, mind you, but I did get invited onto the jury of an international olive oil competition earlier this year. There were several juries, including a jury of olive oil professionals and juries of individuals experienced in tasting things. Mine was one of the latter. The challenge of being a juror isn’t to say I like this one or that one (anyone can do that) but to articulate your impression of each one, to compare judiciously and to defend your position, if necessary. I don’t know if I was up to the task, but I was certainly into the challenge. Here’s a picture of other members of the jury wondering what I’m doing there.

What was I doing there? I was using and improving my education in olive oil.

That was in Paris, but of course the most interesting way to educate one’s palate, improve one’s ability to articulate, and to meet producers and have fun along the way, is through travel, which for me means leaving Paris. Hitting the road and meeting people who know how to talk about what they produce or create—that’s the way I enjoy educating myself, and I take great pleasure in introducing travelers to those producers and creators.

Bastide du Laval in Cadenet (Luberon)

It was while biking in the Luberon area of Provence—lots of olive orchards in Provence—that I first stopped at Bastide du Laval. You don’t even have to be interested in olive oil to enjoy a walk among the orchards there with a beautiful view out to the Luberon hillscape.

In 1998, Roland and Carine Coupat, after living in the United States for a dozen years working in the tourist and travel industry, decided to return to France, and the following year they bought a wine estate in Cadenet in the Luberon area. While continuing to work in the travel business in France, they planted thousands of olive trees on the property. The trees grew and so did their son Léo. Léo now runs the place, which has about 4000 olive trees spread over 37 acres. Olive oil is the main product but there’s also still vineyard on the estate that produces some easy-drinking wine. Meet Léo.

Like most producers, Léo Coupat makes a wide range of olive oils. As I say, there’s a question of greenness, maturity, varietals, etc. Some of them are more to my taste than others—rather, some I would know how to use more than others. Visitors can have a free tasting of them all and also learn how olive oil is made. Any olive oil education should avoid the study of aromatics for the first semester, but here, on a second visit and with a little experience on my palate, I bought a bottle of Bastide du Laval olive oil with natural truffle aroma. I wanted to figure out how to use it without overpowering a dish. You know truffles, right?, truffe in French, those pungent tumor-shaped mushrooms that are dug up in, among other places, Provence. Call it truffle oil if you like, though that makes it sound as though the oil is from truffles whereas it’s produced by mixing truffle aroma in with the olive oil.

So what to do with this truffle oil? Léo advised me to start by drizzling a little on pasta to get a feel for how to use it. Start with some neutral extra virgin olive oil, he said, so that the fresh pasta won’t stick, then add just a bit of truffle oil, taste, then add more until you’ve found what you consider to be the appropriate dose. So that’s what I did, with a little salt and pepper, and topping my dish with parmigiano reggiano. Quite simple and quite good, I must say. My truffle oil education is now off and running.

So what do I try next? I’m thinking a slight drizzle on roasted or mashed potatoes, maybe grate some cheese on that. I’ll have to think about what cheese to use. If I were a French truffle hunter (or an expensive restaurant during truffle season), I’d add some bits of truffle in scrambled eggs for lunch or dinner, so I suppose that a nip of truffle oil instead of the actual truffles could work. Worth a try. But keep is simple, let the truffle oil do the work. You don’t need a dozen ingredients to make a pleasing meal. A sprinkling on grilled meat? Absolutely, with some herbs on top—herbes de Provence, of course. And pizza, I’ll definitely try it on pizza. How about on fish? Salmon? Maybe. Monkfish. Why not? But you’ve got to be delicate with aromatic olive oil, because as a wise man once wrote: “Just a little, not a lot, or something may happen, you never know…”

Bastide du Laval, 199 Chemin de la Royère, 84160 Cadenet. Tel.: +33 (0)4 90 08 95 80.

CastelaS in Les Baux de Provence

On another trip, driving this time—Saint Rémy, Les Baux, Arles—I had an enjoyable and instructive encounter with Catherine and Jean-Benoît Hugues, producers of CastelaS olive oil, at their mill, tasting room and boutique two miles east of the tourist village of Les Baux de Provence. Coincidentally, for I wasn’t actually looking for an American connection, they, too, had lived in the United States, 15 years in Arizona, before rerooting themselves in Provence in 1997.

Theirs is a tremendous estate, with 110 acres within the olive oil appellation (AOP or Protected Designation of Origin) Vallée des Baux de Provence and another 160 acres outside of the appellation zone. In the photo above, you can see the village of Les Baux in the background. From another angle, one would see the Alpilles in the distance. As at Bastide du Laval, you can enjoy a tasting of their wide range and also visit their installation to see how olive oil is made.

Returning recently, I bought a bottle of Noir d’Olive (Olive Black) oil, which has a deep, rich, slightly peppery, slightly fermented taste. “Perfect for salads, fish, mushrooms, mashed potatoes” reads the bottle, all of which sounds appropriate to me. I started with salad since it’s nearly a dressing in its own right. Next up, fish and mashed potatoes. The CastelaS website provides recipes for use of their olive oils.

Moulin CastelaS, Mas de l’Olivier, 13520 Les Baux de Provence. Tel. +33 (0)4 90 54 50 86. Taking D27 east of the village, you’ll see CastelaS on the left shortly before reaching D5.

Other Provence Olive Oils

Those are but two of the many olive oil producers in Provence. I discovered many other quality producers when the labels were revealed after my participation on the jury of the AVPA olive oil contest. AVPA stands for Agence pour la Valorisation des Produits Agricoles, meaning Agency for the Appreciation of Agricultural Products. Jean-Emmanuel Jourde, AVPA president, and Philippe Juglar, AVPA secretary, have created a judging system to award different types of edible oils (of which I was on one of the olive oil juries), coffees roasted at place of origin, teas of the world, and chocolates processed at place of origin.

(Several months after participating on the olive oil jury, I accepted an invitation to join on the jury for “fantasy” chocolates, which I found much more difficult as far as my own abilities to analyze, describe and rate. Along with notes of citrus, basil, cherry or whatever, I kept finding that the earthy dark chocolates tasted like delicious mud and had trouble finding other words for it without prompting.)

The olive oil competition was international, with most entrants naturally coming from Mediterranean countries, which produces the vast majority of the world’s olive oil. Spanish and Italian olive oils dominated among the winners. Lots of uninspiring industrial olive oils come from those world leaders in production, but we tasted some exceptional artisanal oils from there. French production, by comparison with other countries along the Mediterranean basin, is relatively confidential. Nevertheless, there were some Provençale stand-outs among the awardees,  such Domaine Salvator (Cuvée Paradis), Huile H de Leos (Selection H de Leos Fruite Mur), Moulin à huile de Partegal (Cuve Magali), Moulin Cornille (Cuve 63), which can also be visited also near Les Baux de Provence, and “Lol’ive” Domaine Leydier (Noir cuve 9,2).

Balsamic Vinegar from Bals’Art in Roussillon

“French dressing” as known in the U.S. has little relation to the homemade dressing put on salad in French homes, which is typically a vinaigrette of olive oil, (wine) vinegar, (Dijon) mustard and seasoning. So after getting to know the olive oils of Bastide du Laval and Moulin CastelaS, I jumped on the occasion to get to know the balsamic vinegars of Jean-Michel Martias’s Bals’Art when I chanced upon his shop while visiting the pretty ochre-cliff village of Roussillon during a recent driving tour of the Luberon.

Jean-Michel Martias, who is originally from Marseille and has been producing vinegar since 2017, may have advisors and assistants, but to hear him speak about his balsamic vinegars is to hear the passion of a one-man band explaining how he arranges and plays his instruments. From my point of view as a vinegar novice, though a bit less so after visiting the shop, he presents a superb range of about two dozen vinegars. He also does perpetual research for future products. Most sales are from his shop in Roussillon, where visitors can have an extensive tasting, and online.

Jean-Michel currently produces his vinegars from the musts of organic syrah and granache grapes from Provence and Lambrusco (red) and trebbiana (white) from Italy. He uses low-temperature reduction over 10 to 40 hours, so while his balsamic vinegars don’t follow the process (and pricing) of 12+ years of wooden-barrel ageing that goes into Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, they are also a far cry from the watered down industrial balsamic vinegars that are typically found in supermarkets. For his flavored vinegars, the flavor comes through maceration of, for example, basil, pepper, lemon or lavender honey.

I purchased a bottle of his Velours Noir (Black Velvet), a dense, syrupy vinegar tasting of ripe cherry and raspberry. Too rich and intense for a vinaigrette, I think. When I called Jean-Michel later from home to ask how else he recommended that I use it, he suggested dribbling it on a tomato or sprinkling it on vanilla ice cream or drizzling some on duck magret. For now, I’ve only enjoyed a few drops on a teaspoon, then a few more drops, and I had to stop myself before consuming the entire bottle as though it were an after-dinner liqueur.

I also bought a balsamic vinegar block, a product that Jean-Michel makes by adding to his vinegar the gelling agent agar-agar, an extract from red seaweed from along France’s Atlantic coast. Using a fine grater, I grated a few bits on an endive salad on which I’d simply poured some of the CastelaS Noir d’Olive mentioned earlier. It tasted as I would have imagined: vinegar strips in an olive-rich salad. Interesting, I’d say for now. Again, I asked Jean-Michel how best to approach the block. Use it wherever you might otherwise add a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, he told me. In other words, it’s something to play with during recess while pursuing my Provence olive oil education.

Bals’Art, 15 rue du Castrum, 84220 Roussillon. Tel.: +33(0)4 32 52 16 40.

© 2021, Gary Lee Kraut

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So here is one way to re-raise the culinary bar with a summer sandwich recipe.

The ingredients
1. A traditional baguette, up to one half per person.
2. Comté cheese aged 18 months, 100-150 grams (3.5-5.3 ounces) per person.
3. Mustard with truffles, up to one teaspoonful, to taste, per person.

The traditional baguette

Formally called une baguette de tradition française, un pain traditionnel français, or un pain traditionnel [de France], and colloquially known as une tradition [s’il vous plait], the make-up of a traditional baguette is defined by a governmental decree of 1993. It must contain only wheat flour, water and salt, along with yeast, with tolerance for very limited amounts of other flours. Plenty of other delicious breads, including non-traditional baguettes and other loaves may also be tried with this recipe if you don’t have a baker of excellent traditional baguettes nearby. However, a traditional baguette is best.

While the proper portion of tender crumb (mie) to cracking crust (croûte) is important for any baguette, I prefer for this recipe a traditional baguette on the slightly white (blanche, meaning less baked) side of the spectrum, as opposed to the crustier more baked (cuite) version. In any case, it should remain within the mid-range, neither too blanche nor too cuite. It is essential that the baguette not be over 3 hours old, otherwise toasting in required. If there are several bread bakers within reach of your grocery rounds, it’s advisable to decide upon the best maker of traditional baguettes before attempting this recipe. Your stick of bread should also be kindly served at the bakery; a fine-looking baguette from an unkind seller may contain traces of bad karma. (Within my shopping radius, the prize baguette is found at 58 rue de Lancry in the 10th arrondissement.)

A single baguette feeds two for an adult’s lunch where this sandwich is the principal “dish.” For those who like figures, count two-fifths to four-ninths of a baguette per sandwich. That leaves a small portion which may have already been eaten on the way from the bakery anyway.

The cheese

This recipe calls for a semi-hard raw-milk cow cheese with a sharpness that is present yet not overly pronounced. My preference is for a Comté cheese aged 18 months. Comté is the most popular cheese in France. Produced in 80-pound wheels, three feet in diameter, then aged in the area of its production for four months to four years, Comté comes from the Jura Massif, a sub-alpine range along the French-Swiss border. We are naturally on the French side with this sandwich, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region for the most part. (Some Comté also produced in Ain, on the northern edge of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region). The Montbéliarde breed of cow is the primary source (95%) of milk for Comté, while 5% of the overall herd is comprised of the Simmental breed.

Much of the production is placed on the market after less than 12 months in the maturing cellars. However, those younger Comté risk being overwhelmed by the mustard with truffles in this recipe, while older Comtés aged 24 months or more stand best on their own. A 15-month Comté may do, but at 18 months there’s an ideal balance between its nuttiness and its saltiness, a saltiness that becomes more pronounced with ageing. (Note: What may appear to be salt in older Comtés of 18 months and more are in fact cheese crystals, as one might find in older Parmesans). Together, the nuttiness and the saltiness at 18 months further balance well with the mustard with truffles. Learn about Comté aging in this video.

I’ve also tried this recipe with a flavorful sheep cheese, such as a Tomme Corse, from Corsica, aged close to one year, and found it quite interesting. I’ve also experimented with a Brie de Melun (not Brie de Meaux), from just east of Paris, aged 10 weeks, and enjoyed that as well, though I prefer for this recipe a cheese with a semi-hard texture. In a pinch, when French cheese isn’t available, Comté can be replaced by an aged sharp cheddar. In any case, this is an element of the recipe that’s worth playing with according to your taste and the availability of various cheeses. Just be sure to select a gracefully aged cheese with a pronounced but not stinky taste on its own.

The mustard

The Romans of Antiquity were likely the first mustard makers in Europe, but the international conquest of the condiment comes from the appetite of the Dukes of Burgundy during the Middle Ages, particularly from their duchy’s capital in Dijon. Hence the reputation of Dijon in your own lifetime, more than 600 years later.

Dijon mustard (which isn’t necessarily from Dijon and might better be thought of as Dijon-style mustard) is prepared with dark mustard seeds, which have a sharper bite than the mild yellow (actually, yellow-white) variety. The English language gets the word mustard from the Old French moustarde (moutarde in Modern French). Mustum (Latin)/ moût (French)/ must (English) refers to the grape juice or young wine that was added to the grains to create the mustard paste.

Nowadays, 70% of French-made Dijon mustards use grains from Canada, but the jar used in this recipe contains only grains from Burgundy, administratively part of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.

My mustard of choice for this summer sandwich is one with bits of white summer truffles, moutarde aux brisures de truffes blanches d’été. Specifically, a limited-edition product made by Reine de Dijon, a company based just outside of Dijon. The truffles in question are tuber aestivum, at 1.1%—a small but potent percentage. Use sparsely but markedly, enough to reach the nose when you first pick up your sandwich but not enough to overwhelm the bread and the cheese. The amount is key so as not to upset the proper balance of this sandwich. Do not feel that you have to cover every nook and cranny of the mie (crumb) of the bread. If this is your first time using truffled mustard then you may want to take a test run on with the nib of the baguette. (I will not at this time discuss the debate within the culinary community in France as to whether it should be placed on the bottom or top portion of the sliced baguette.)

Edmond Fallot, another regional mustard house (moutarderie), which can be visited in Beaune, the main town just south of Dijon, makes what might be considered a more precious mustard using fall-winter truffles (truffe de Bourgogne, tuber uncanitum, 5%). However, that mustard is more appropriately served with grilled meats or rabbit, or perhaps integrated into a homemade mayonnaise for other dishes, rather than used as a delicate condiment for this summer sandwich. (I could well imagine either mustard properly dosed to add a kick to a sandwich of raw roast beef, with or without cheese, and leave you to experiment with that at home.)

Maille, the most internationally known Burgundy-based mustard producers, also makes a line of truffled mustards.

No other condiments are needed.

How to serve

Cut in half. Best when served with fruit or salad. Avoid serving with potato chips (though I understand the temptation). This summer sandwich should be served soon after preparation.

Suggested wine

Côtes de Jura vin jaune, a deep yellow wine, as the name indicates, from the same region as the Comté cheese. I’ve also had a delightful experience in pairing with this dish a 100% pinot meunier brut champagne, which has the advantage of serving as the aperitif as well.

See this video for other wine and Comté pairing ideas and this video for other dishes with Comté.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut.

The post A Summer Cheese Sandwich Recipe appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Working from home you managed to make lunch of the last of your cheese (a 24-month comté) and the last of your vegetables (a brown-edged endive), mixed with your homemade vinaigrette of Les Baux de Provence olive oil, Modena balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard with honey and thyme.

Now, as night falls and your thoughts turn to dinner, your refrigerator offers you nothing but the Dijon mustard, a jar of apple-pear jelly from Normandy and a bottle of champagne. In the little freezer compartment there’s only a tray of ice cubes and a wine bag.

On a shelf beside the refrigerator there’s a bag of fusilli, a box of long grain rice and a box of couscous, with only olive oil and condiments to add to any of them. There’s cereal and a box of UHT 2% milk, for an emergency, but no need to panic. On another shelf there’s a collection of items that you’ve been given at press events and trade shows: several more jars of Dijon mustard (with curry and coconut, with Madagascar black pepper, with white truffles), from a food fair; a bottle containing a dry mix for making the chickpea crepe called socca, from a presentation about the Riviera; mignonettes (mini bottles, nips) of cognac, mirabelle de Loraine, genepi de Savoie, Grand Marnier, liqueur de chataigne and others, from various regional events.

Then you see something you forgot you’d been given: a box of French combat rations, from the opening of an exhibition about war photography and photographers at the Army Museum in Paris. You retrieve it from the lower shelf.

It’s stamped with the expiration date January 27, 2019, nearly one year ago today. You wipe off the dust and place the box on the table.

Expiration date

Just then your intercom buzzes. It’s a friend who said he would stop by to pick up a pair of shoes that he’d left at your place when his feet were hurting from walking so much during the transportation strike and you’d lent him a more comfortable pair. That’s another story—and it’s this story as well since your friend’s work entails ordering food for the cafeteria of a public hospital. So his arrival is perfect timing—you’ll ask his advice regarding the expiration date on your box of combat rations.

“The box looks clean,” he says. “Probably no extreme temperatures in this kitchen. I’d say it’s good. But you’ll have to see how it looks inside.”

You open the box. Inside are a compact abundance of packets and tins. Your friend observes that nothing is dented or torn.

“It’s good,” he says.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“No,” he says, “my feet hurt. But I’ll take the chocolate for the walk home, if you don’t mind.”

He takes the chocolate and the power bars and his shoes, and he leaves.

Duck rillette

You decide to go for it, beginning with the tin of duck rillette. Rillette is a kind of cold pulled pork except that in this case it’s duck, 74%, so a cold, shreaded confit de canard is more like. You try a spoonful. Cooked in fat (20%), it’s slightly greasy, as is to be expected, but not too salty. Tasty!

You open the packet of army biscuits to spread it on. First, a bite of dry biscuit. It tastes like an underbaked mix of wheat flour, water and skimmed milk powder. Is it stale or is it supposed to taste like that? Or are you just spoiled by easy access to some of the finest bread in the world?

You give the biscuit another try with some duck rillette. It’s still bad. So you chuck the biscuits and enjoy the rillette by itself. Quite good indeed. Ensuring that deployed soldiers enjoy their meal is essential for troop morale.

“An army marches on its stomach”

“Une armée marche sur son estomac,” said Napoleon Bonaparte. An army marches on its stomach. He offered a prize of 12,000 francs to the person who could come up with a means of preserving food to feed advancing troops. It took several years for a Frenchman, Nicolas Appert, to perfect a method for bottling fruits and vegetables, which he then extended to other foods. The use of metal containers was then patented several years later in England. By the second half of the 19th century tin cans had begun to supply armies, doing so on an industrial scale beginning with the First World War.

More than 30,000 French soldiers are currently deployed around the world: about 20,000 in operations in continental France and its overseas departments and territories and most of the rest in Africa (Dijbouti, Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and elsewhere) and the Middle East (Syria, United Arab Emirates).

A 10-person jury of military taste-testers in Rambouillet, 27 miles southwest of Paris, is partially responsible for approving of the contents of French combat rations. These rations, also NATO-approved, contain a hefty dose of protein along with a proper balance of carbs, lipids, calcium and omega 3.

Pasta and salmon salad

You gaze out the window of your quarters at the peace of Paris below. It’s momentarily disturbed by the bass horn of a bus intended to stir an ill-parked car without violence. Then the calm returns. You have nothing to fear but the fear of the expiration date itself.

Since you haven’t left your apartment all day, your nutritional and energetic needs differ from those of a soldier taking part in the Barkhane operation against Islamic terrorist groups in western Africa. Nevertheless, you’re still hungry.

You snap open the tin of pasta and salmon salad.

Forking some onto a plate reminds you of why you preferred dry food over canned for your cat back in the day.

After several years in the can it takes a dish a bit of time to get used to fresh air, so you let it sit for a few minutes, like fine wine. When you do take a bite you’re surprised to find that the chunks of Atlantic salmon (36%) actually still taste salmony. Another bite, then another. The dish is bland, but salmon and pasta do make for a worthy combination. You could add some of the enclosed packet of salt and pepper, but you’re glad for the salad’s blandness because if it had any bite to it that might come from rot rather than from the bits of red pepper, carrot and onion.

You stop halfway through the contents of the tin. Enough calories for now. Furthermore, you don’t want to tempt fate. Better to call it a meal and stop there for the evening. See how you feel as the evening winds down.

You put the unopened packets and tins in the box and place it on the shelf. Doing so draws your eyes to the assembly of mini bottles of brandy. What the hell, you think, and you pour yourself a nip of plum brandy from Lorraine. A little schnapps could come in handy should tensions flare in the night.

Muesli with chocolate bits

The night was calm. Few shots were fired. You slept well.

Opening the curtains in the morning and looking out the window you see people stopping in at the bakery across the street. Fresh bread is just a few flights of stairs away, but you resist. You stay in your quarters. You won’t let fresh artisanal bread about which food journalists write glowing articles distract you from what you now see as your mission: getting three meals from your box of rations. If you had any butter the choice would be more difficult, but walking 300 yards to the fromagerie for some raw-milk butter from Brittany would be undisciplined. Besides, it’s raining. So you follow instructions as indicated on the pack of muesli with chocolate bits: Tear open. Add water to line.

The muesli tastes like wet chocolate-flavored paper with bits of lyophilized apple (4%). The wet paper with apples would have been fine, but you haven’t liked chocolate (13%) in your cereal since you were 10. Of course, many of the soldiers for whom the ration box is intended are barely a 20-mile hike and a few hundred push-ups past adolescence, so the chocolate chips do have their place on the menu. Whatever gets a soldier going, you guess. But you, you stop after a few spoonfuls and make yourself some soluble coffee.

Breakfast. Check.

Chili con carne

For three hours you work cleaning out your gun (desk), examining the map of an upcoming mission (crossing Paris during the strike), conferring with fellow men at arms about the night shift (a dinner party that you didn’t go to because of the strike) and checking in on the wounded (calling a friend who had an MRI on her knee after tripping over a scooter lying on the sidewalk). You’re quite hungry by the time noon comes around.

Returning to your ration box, you see what remains for lunch. If you’re going to get out of your mission unscathed you’ll have to get past the box’s most formidable expired dish: chili con carne. You hesitate and return to your desk. One o’clock passes, then two. You consider putting it off until evening. You’d rather not face it alone, so you text your friend who works at the hospital to see if he wants to come over for dinner. “Chili con carne,” you write. He responds: “Don’t each much carne anymore.” You text back: “I have a packet of dried soup, just add water, for you.” “Feet hurt,” he responds. Then radio silence.

You’re famished. At 14h20 you make your move. While the box indicates an expiration date of Jan. 27, 2019, the tin of chili con carne is stamped 04 2019, meaning that it expired only nine months ago—that’s three months in your favor. And not a dent. You remember what the foie gras and smoked salmon producer said about an old glass jar of foie gras: “It gets better with time. So as long as it’s still properly sealed you can consider the suggested sell-by date as simply a legal obligation.”

You unpack the heating kit and assemble the pieces. You light the cube and place the tin on top. The contents boil quickly. After a few minutes the cube is consumed; the flame goes out. You unfold the plastic spork. Despite its resemblance to dog food (but isn’t that the aspect of chili con carne anyway?), the mix of ground beef (32%), rehydrated red beans (25%), tomato concentrate, salt, pepper, cumin and onions is appetizing, hearty and filling. After downing half the container you feel satisfied. More than that, you feel triumphant.

Caramel cream

You pop open the caramel cream dessert to end the meal. It has the look and consistency of orange-brown house paint. You taste the slightest bit. It’s disgusting. Or was that because there was some chili con carne left on your spork? You wipe it off and try another slightest bit. Equally disgusting. This one has certainly turned, at least you hope so for the sake of French soldiers in Chad.

Your training and experience have taught you make quick, logical decisions for the good of yourself and your team. You wouldn’t lead anyone down that orange-brown path, least of all yourself. You set it aside and immediately return to the chili con carne for a few more sporkfuls to end your meal on a meaty note.

Taking risks

You’ve completed your mission of three meals. You forgo the second packet of soluble coffee. After 20 hours garrisoned in your hovel you’re ready to go out. You’ll stop in a café while out food shopping.

You place the trash and unopened packets into the ration box and take it downstairs to the garbage. As you exit the building you’re nearly hit by a scooter on the sidewalk. You wave to the baker across the street. You think of the young, dedicated, dutiful soldiers risking their lives during operations, making an unsafe world a tad safer, nourished by a tin of chili con carne. Completing a mission of eating three meals from a box of combat ration was just a game for you—a food game in one of the world’s greatest food playgrounds. It was all for fun, a personal dare to have a story to tell, like a 15-year-old American trying escargot for the first time. There was never any risk in eating the expired combat rations. Of course there wasn’t. If you were truly a risk-taker you wouldn’t be living in Paris.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The post You know you live in Paris when…: French Combat Rations appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

At 7 AM my dog Britanie tells me it is time to get up and start our daily routine. It begins with her first walk of the day that includes a stop at Boulangerie Delattre, on rue du Cherche-Midi. There I leave her attached to a hook outside the door while I run in and buy my breakfast croissant for 1.10€.

I prefer a croissant beurre, made with butter as opposed to ordinary croissants, which are made with margarine. The butter gives it more flavor than the ordinary croissant.

“The quality of the butter also makes a big difference,” Mme. Delattre tells me. She and I both remember when butter prices went up and the Delattres experimented with a lower quality. They gave it up in disgust after a couple of weeks and raised their price from 1€ to 1.10€. Cheaper butter produces a chewier croissant, with less taste. The Delattre croissant beurre is flaky, and when small flakes fall off, I give them to Britanie, who watches for them with an eagle eye.

I eat the croissant with my two morning cups of coffee. I love this breakfast ritual, which I have followed for over forty years, first with my husband Earl, who died four years ago, now alone. I have held to it like a treasure, to remember him by.

But today is Saturday, August 12, beginning a four-day weekend which will culminate on Tuesday, August 15, a legal holiday called Assumption. It celebrates the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary to heaven at the end of her earthly life. The French call such cobbled together long weekends ponts or bridges. This holiday looks to me like a consolation prize for those businesses unable to take their fermeture annuelle (annual closing) in August. More businesses seem to close for this one than for Christmas.

The hunt is on

Knowing that Boulangerie Delattre will be closed for the whole month, I go straight to Boulangerie Thevenin on the rue de Rennes, a bit farther from home. Their croissant beurre, also 1.10€, is large and flaky, just as good as Delattre, but I don’t like to leave Britanie hooked up alone by the door in this busy area where I cannot see her from inside.

Alas, their “engineers,” as Earl used to call them, have built the holiday “bridge” and Thevenin is closed. A sign on the door tells me this boulangerie will reopen on Wednesday, August 16th.

Britanie and I walk several blocks further to Eric Kayser at the corner of rue de Sèvres and boulevard du Montparnasse. Eric Kayser is a chain with twenty locations, three of them in New York. I have always distrusted chain stores because their quality can vary so much. After a long wait in line I pay 1.20€ for my croissant beurre, thinking that for the 10 cents more than I am used to paying it had better be good. It is flaky enough, but it has a burnt spot on the bottom.

The following day, Sunday, August 13, Eric Kayser is closed. I remember that the bakery and pastry shop Gérard Mulot, a good deal farther from home, near the Marché St. Germain, is open on Sundays. Better known for its pastries, I don’t find the Mulot croissants as good as either of the other two. They are chewy rather than flaky, and again I remember a burnt spot on the bottom of the last one I had. It also costs 1.40€. But I am desperate, so Britanie and I trek down there, only to find they are taking the whole month off.

On my way home I pass several other boulangeries, including a big chain one, Secco. All are closed today. At last I remember Boulangerie La Parisienne, at the corner of rue de Vaugirard and rue Madame. It’s one of seven shops owned by a baker who in 2016 won the presitigious Best Baguette in Paris competition which made him the official supplier to the Elysées Palace (official residence of the French president) for a year. I stand in an interminable line of mostly English speaking tourists struggling to order in French. My croissant costs 1.20€, it is the largest one I have found yet, and it is nice and flaky. To me, it’s also tasteless. After I eat half of it, I give the rest to Britanie. She nibbles it without enthusiasm.

On Monday August 14th, I assume Eric Kayser will be open, since it was closed the day before. It is, but when I get there around 10:30, they are sold out of croissants. Secco is, however, open, and I take home a croissant that is more than chewy, it is almost tough, for which I again pay 1.20€. This time Britanie gets three quarters of my rejected croissant. She does not lick her dish to get every crumb.

Eric Kayser has announced that its boulangerie will be open on August 15, Assumption Day itself. It keeps its promise. I go early, at 9 AM, and find a breakfast croissant that is reasonably flaky, reasonably buttery, bottom unburnt this time.

By August 16, the worst is over. Thevenin has reopened, and will see me through until my favorite Boulangerie Delattre reopens at the end of the month. I will then be at peace until next August, when Britanie and I will set out again on the Great Croissant Hunt.

© Alice Evleth, 2018

Alice Evleth is a long-time American expatriate living in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

The post Holiday in Paris: The Croissants of August appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The admonisher, backed by the supercilious smiles of snotty companions, will inform you that appétit (appetite) refers to the physical act of digestion and the animal desire to chow down rather than to the appreciation and pleasure of sharing a meal. Since it’s inappropriate to speak of the workings of the intestines at the dinner table, he’ll explain, “Bon appétit” is a cultural no-no. At least “in good society,” he’ll add in case you missed the condescension.

To say “Bon appétit,” according such thinking (though it isn’t so much thinking as an expression of dismay that there so few servants around), is akin to acknowledging that the queen has passed gas and that the exquisite meal before you shall end up in the plumbing tomorrow morning. You are led to understand that “Bon appétit,” or “Bon app,” as it is more informally and ridiculously said, may be common at tables where poor schmucks are lucky enough to have fuel for the body, but not among proper company such as this—though you’re to be excused as a foreigner for not knowing better, just don’t let it happen again. Digest later, if you must, for now we’re dining.

[Interestingly, this article in a major French daily, Le Figaro, (published several days after my initial text and sent to me by an amused French reader), even in arguing the case against “Bon appétit,” appears to acknowledge that it’s use or non-use is a question of class, given its popularity among the necessarily improper common folk. The article also blames Americans for being crass enough to consider “Bon appétit” acceptable and thus spread bad manners.]

There’s no need to be cowered by this faction of the snobocracy in France. For them, “Bon appétit” may be inverted code for “not one of us,” but generally speaking it refers no more to digestion today than “snob” now refers to the shoemaker of its etymological origin.

Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile being seated at such tables because tables of abundance abound with insights into culture, society, individuals, ritual and etiquette, along with the pleasures of the food and drink served.

Looking around the table as you dine in Paris and travel in France, you may recognize some of the people described below. You’re likely to meet them at home as well. You may even identify with one of these terms yourself. Magazine publishers certainly think you do.

Epicures: Epicures are exceptional connoisseurs of pleasure, luxury, and/or sensuality, generally relative to food and drink. Their storehouse of knowledge and experience give them sensitive and discriminating tastes. For instance, an epicure knows how to stick his nose deep into a glass of red wine, though he sometimes does it in a way that makes non-epicures want to push his face into it. Epicures can be pleasant conversationalists at a dinner party, but as they describe their food travels they may reveal an edge of anxiety if you don’t share their opinions. That’s the time to suggest that they read up on the life and thought of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, and to chill out.

Gourmets: Gourmets may be less refined than epicures but have educated palates nonetheless and are generally better cooks. A gourmet certainly knows food and fully grasps the meaning of words like braised, blanch and deglaze. Though a gourmet need not know how to cook, the word is frequently used to qualify someone’s cooking skills, as a gourmet chef. The demise in 2009 of the American magazine Gourmet might be attributed to the fact that the word itself no longer made enough upscale food folk drool. By then, foodies had come of age.

Foodies: Foodies is a term coined in the 1980s, and for a while they were the Trekkies of the food chain. But by the end of the 1990s the success of the Food Network and cooking shows around the world proved that there were minions of food-worshippers seeking ways to glorify their own appetite. The term’s trajectory naturally matches that of Whole Foods. Foodies are more faddish and perhaps more gullible than gourmets, yet they can also be more joyous and more passionate in congratulating themselves for fulfilling their (bon) appetite.

Gastronomes: Gastronomes are close to epicures in that they have a wealth of food knowledge and dining experience that have earned them discerning tastes. They are enthusiasts, fond of judging and comparing, and can thus be name-droppers when it comes to fine restaurants. Though not necessarily snobs, gastronomes have been known to miss out on the social sensuality and pleasure of the dining experience. Nevertheless, one would be remiss in refusing a dinner invitation from a gastronome due to the pleasure they take in the art of cookery. Gastronomy, of course, is their game. As a house gift, better to bring flowers or chocolates than wine because the gastronome invariably has something “more appropriate” to serve.

Connoisseurs: From the French word literally meaning “one who knows,” i.e. an expert. The connoisseur is typically qualified by the object of his expertise, wine connoisseur being the prime example. When a connoisseur knows how to keep his abundance of knowledge in check, he’s a welcome guest. His ability to appreciate subtleties in his field often make for informative and entertaining company. Some connoisseurs, however, dominate the conversation with their their expertise, which then also makes them bores. The wine connoisseur, for example, can come in handy when it comes to choosing wine, as long as he doesn’t spend the evening complimenting himself on his selection.

Mavens: Think of maven as the Yiddish translation of the French word connoisseur and you’ll begin to seize the difference. Mavens are generally highly educated people with a specific expertise, which makes them great company… for a book. Unfortunately, at the dinner table, while they can wow the assembly with their expertise, they seem to believe that their expertise in one thing makes them experts in everything, including everything on your plate and every topic of conversation.

Gluttons: Gluttons, given to immoderate consumption, are voracious and wolfish eaters and drinkers. Some gourmets and connoisseurs are closet gluttons, using their intellectual interest in good food and wine as a cover for a greedy appetite. But a glutton who acknowledges that he’s a glutton can, despite the tendency to self-abuse, be a fun eating companion, every now and then, though you’re likely to find yourself overindulging while in his company.

Gourmands: A gourmand has a good appetite and may also have discerning tastes, but since the strength of his appetite is greater than his need to discern he won’t turn his nose up at anything. He may well be married to a gourmet. Sitting between the quantity needs of the glutton and the quality interests of the gourmet, the gourmand is nevertheless occasionally given to excess. The British magazine The Gourmand thus put this fellow on a recent cover:

Bons vivants (or bon vivants): Literally ones who live well or are fond of good living, the term refers to those with a healthy, lively appetite for the finer things in life, particularly food and drink. Their good humor makes for jovial company. “Let’s get another bottle, I’ll pay for it,” they say. When the bill comes they don’t always have the cash on hand, but you accept their generosity of spirit as payment enough. They sometimes calm down after their first heart attack.

Bon appétit!

© Gary Lee Kraut

The post Table Talk: Bon Appétit and Other Dinner Conversations appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

For one, they’re both staples of the French celebratory and holiday table and of plenty of hospitable tables and cocktail events in between.

For two, they’re both produced with excellence and tradition by Maison Barthouil, a family business located in the small town of Peyrehorade in the Landes department of southwest France, between Béarn and Basque Country.

While Barthouil products (under the J. Barthouil brand) are sold in a handful of luxury grocers throughout France, in some restaurants and online, their only shop outside of their home village is in Paris, in the Upper Marais. That’s where I met with Pauline Barthouil, the company’s sales director and granddaughter of its founder.

Foie Gras

Fattened duck liver (foie gras de canard) and all manner of duck preparations have long graced the table in southwest France. They can thank European explorations in the Americas for returning home with the prime ingredients for foie gras: large ducks and the corn with which to (force-)feed them.

The Barthouil family, however, gets to call their affection for all things duck a truly local affair since their business is based on a traditional model of agriculture. Hatcheries in the area deliver 1-day-old ducklings to five breeders whose farms are located within 25 miles of Peyrehorade. The breeders then raise a safe of about 400 ducks for 16 weeks until slaughter. The breeders also grow their own corn, which represents 50% of the ducks’ diet while being raised and 100% during the 12-13-day fattening period known as gavage. Gavage is the force-feeding that gives such a delicious taste and buttery texture to the fattened liver. It is also the technique that occasionally gets the production of foie gras banned in certain parts of the U.S.. (Pauline Barthouil emphasizes the gentleness of the breeders’ handling during gavage and the calm of the feeding room.)

Some 25,000 ducks are raised and slaughtered each year for their products. J. Barthouil transforms the entire duck, since in addition to producing various types of duck foie gras (different preparations of entier or whole foie gras and of mi-cuit or semi-cooked foie gras), along with mousse and terrine, the company also makes the duck versions of rillettes (pulled duck cooked in duck fat and served cold as an hors d’oeuvre spread), confit (a drool-worthy main course of duck cooked in its own fat), cassoulet (a hearty duck and white bean dish), fresh breast or duck steak (magret), smoked, dried magret, and other preparations. Barthouil also produces some goose foie gras.

I asked Pauline Barthouil two nagging questions:
The first: Is there a difference between whole foie gras in a tin and in a jar? The answer: No.
The second: Several or more years ago I gave to my sister a jar of foie gras that she’s yet to open. The sell-by date has rubbed off and, not knowing how old it is, she’s wonders if it’s safe to eat. Do we dare eat the foie gras inside the next time I visit? Her answer: Absolutely! For me, she said, it gets better with time. So as long as it’s still properly sealed you can consider the suggested sell-by date as simply a legal obligation.

Smoked salmon

Salmon was abundant in western France until about a century ago, when numbers, already dwindling, began falling more dramatically. As they migrate inland from salty seas, some salmon, however, are still found in the rivers and streams of Brittany, in the Loire, and in the Adour and its confluents, i.e. Barthouil territory.

Pauline Barthouil’s grandfather Gaston would have known days of abundance, which is probably why, when he became aware of the novelty of Scandinavian smoking, he might have though, “Hey, I’ve got salmon, I’ve got land, let’s build a smokehouse and start smoking.” Except that he had no experience in smoking salmon. His amateur attempts were likely so smoked that they tasted more like fishy ash than lightly smoked fish.

He therefore sent his production manager to Denmark to learn from European pros of preserving through smoking. Thus the Danish tradition became the tradition of the Bartouil family, which continues to follow much the same method as in the late 1950s, though with indirect smoking rather than the original method of direct smoking. (Pauline’s sister Guillemette Barthouil is the current production manager).

Local Adour wild salmon, which the company considers “the Rolls Royce of its kind,” still appears on the Barthouil menu, where it weighs in at 315€ per kilo in its sliced smoke version. The vast majority of the production, however, is shipped from far north: wild salmon from the Baltic Sea, Norway and Scotland, along with farm-raised salmon from Scotland (organic) and Norway. Smoked and sliced, these salmons range in cost from 107-182€ per kilo.

Plump salmon arrives whole (gutted) and fresh three days after slaughter. The salmon is hand salted with dry salt from Salies de Béarn, 12 miles east. After drying, it is cold smoked (68-75°F) for 20 hours with alder wood, a type of birch, which gives only a slight woody taste. Alder had been used by their Danish “teachers” yet needn’t be imported since it grows abundantly in France, including in the southwest.

Among the eight types of J. Barthouil smoked salmon available, there’s an exquisite wild Scottish salmon (175€/kilo), but I particularly enjoy the subtlety and refinement taste of the wild salmon from Norway’s Namesen Fjord (150€/kilo), whose taste hints at the krill that it feeds on. I also appreciate for its distinctiveness the wild salmon from the Baltic Sea salmon (130€/kilo), which feeds in part on herring, giving it its gray-beige in color and a slight herring taste.

Tarama

A third specialty of the house is tarama, a fish-roe spread that’s frequently served with the aperitif in Paris. Barthouil’s seven tarama recipes all use Islandic cod eggs and rapeseed oil, to which may be added fresh crab or Espelette pepper (two personal favorites), scallops, sea urchin (for those ready to be launched into an iodized coastal fantasy), truffles or algae.

French caviar is also available in the shop. The shop also sells some accompanying wine and spirits, often with an eye to southwestern producers, such as Lactalium vodka distilled in Gers from cow’s milk from Auvergne.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

Maison Barthouil’s Paris boutique, J. Barthouil: 41 rue Charlot, 3rd arr. Tel. 01 42 78 32 88. Metro Temple or Filles du Calvaire. Closed Monday. Nicolas Ferrand, glimpsed in the first video, provides friendly counsel in the Paris shop, which he manages.

The video below, from the Barthouil website, tells of the company history and gives a step-by-step presentation of its production of foie gras and smoked salmon. It is narrated by Jacques Barthouil, son of Gaston, father Pauline and Guillemette. Company president and primary shareholder, he is the J. of J. Barthouil.

The post French Table: J. Barthouil Foie Gras and Smoked Salmon appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.